Who are you ?
Quentin—Fenris—Quentin. The time of decision had come at last. Two wills locked in implacable combat, forsaking their brief and tenuous alliance. Only one would survive.
Distantly, through the din of their clashing thoughts, they heard Johanna’s exclamation of alarm and warning. They smelled the new intruders just before they burst into the room: Harper in the lead, bearing a wooden beam like a club; Oscar right behind him, fists raised; and then Irene and Lewis Andersen. The Haven’s residents crowded through the door, and Boroskov lunged out of their path.
“Harper!” Johanna cried.
The former soldier advanced on Boroskov, beam at the ready. “You all right, Doc?”
Irene forced her way past the wall of Oscar’s bulk and stood before Boroskov, her face bare of paint and her body drawn up high.
“You,” she hissed. “You betrayed me. You deserted me—”
“Get back!” Johanna shouted.
Boroskov sent Irene flying across the room with one blow. Lewis Andersen ran to tend her crumpled form.
Harper lifted the beam, and Oscar came to stand beside him.
“You bastard,” Harper said. “You aren’t going to hurt anyone else.”
Boroskov laughed. “Rescued just in the nick of time,” he said. “Your mad humans, dear Johanna, have more fortitude and resourcefulness than I would have suspected.” He snatched the beam from Harper’s hands as if it were a twig. “A few more deaths on your conscience will make little difference, will they, Quentin?”
Unable to act, to move, even to breathe, Quentin saw the end of everything he had come to love. He was incapable of speech, but it didn’t matter. Fenris would hear him.
If only one of them could have this body for the years to come, it must be the one who could save the others. If Quentin—if all he knew as himself—must die, so be it.
His fear vanished.
“My life is yours, Fenris,” he said. “Take it. Stop Boroskov.”
His heart—Fenris’s heart—jarred to a stop and then started up again at double the pace.
Free.
Quentin felt what Fenris felt as he charged at Boroskov, ripped the beam from his grasp, carried him with the weight of his body up against the wall.
“You… won’t… win,” Fenris panted, his hand grinding into the Russian’s throat. But he did not strike to kill.
Give me your strength, he asked Quentin. And Quentin gave it, all he had, even to the last shred of his identity.
Fenris took it. And this time, miracle of miracles, the sharing was complete. Together they knew the fierce joy of a new power filling muscles and organs, flesh and bones, mind and spirit—a sense of completion they had blindly sought all their lives. They knew courage blended with hope, strength matched with restraint, anger channeled by discipline and resolve.
Fenris stared into Boroskov’s eyes and summoned up the mental gifts of the werewolf breed, the gifts Quentin had never been able to find within himself. He drove into Boroskov’s mind.
Boroskov met him, will for will. But Fenris stepped aside with animal cunning, let Boroskov’s mental counterattack slide past, and plunged deep into the Russian’s memories.
All the memories. Pain. Torment. Darkness. Punishment for disobedience, pleasure for cooperation. Day after day, night after night. Father’s face. Grandfather’s. Masks of sinister purpose and merciless brutality.
Kill. Kill. Kill.
Chapter 25
Boroskov screamed. Quentin felt the jolt of sudden abandonment as Fenris left his body.
His body.
He fell against Boroskov like a puppet with cut strings. The Russian continued to scream, clawing at the wall behind him. With sheer stubborn determination, Quentin worked his numb hands to life and pinned Boroskov’s arms to his sides. He sensed Johanna very near, the others watching in astonishment. He didn’t let them distract him. He held onto Boroskov until the Russian’s flailing stopped. His screams faded to whimpers, and then nothing.
The silence was so intense that Quentin could hear the sounds of people moving in the streets outside, drawn by the commotion. Cautiously he released Boroskov. The Russian slumped to the ground, blank-eyed. Spittle ran from the corner of his mouth.
“Quentin?” Johanna said.
“I’m here.”
Johanna knelt beside Quentin and touched Boroskov’s throat. “He’s alive,” she said, “but unconscious.”